The Walthall farm, which included much of Chariton south of Woodlawn Avenue, was visible just across Highway 14 to the east during Mike's presentation. Samuel and his wife, Rebecca, and their daughter, Nancy, were buried originally at Douglass Pioneer Cemetery, about half a mile southeast, but were removed to the Chariton Cemetery --- along with their tombstones --- by descendants during 1919.
Here's the script used by Mike during his presentation:
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My name is Samuel White Walthall and my descendants, hundreds of them by now, expect me to introduce myself as a veteran of the War of 1812 because that’s all they know about me.
Some of my daughters, early in the 20th century, wanted a Revolutionary War ancestor. We had none in the Walthall family, so my 1812 service was a consolation prize. They celebrated it anyway and that is how I’m remembered.
There are three of us 1812 vets here in the Chariton Cemetery. The others are Caleb Proctor, a Massachusetts boy and a sailor by trade until he washed up in Chariton; and Henry Younkin, native to Pennsylvania. A dozen or more are buried elsewhere in Lucas County.
We get together sometimes and talk about this because our war wasn’t widely noted or long remembered by the American people then, or now --- even though the British burned Washington, D.C., during August of 1814 --- and many brave men fought and died. But even so, my term of service was brief, I didn’t encounter a single enemy soldier and there are other things I would like you to know.
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I was born during August of 1795 on a farm in Prince Edward County, Virginia, southwest of Richmond. My parents were John and Catharine Walthall, modestly successful farmers. And yes, they owned slaves --- 10 to a dozen during peak years. And I was a slave-owner, too, as a young man. I’m not proud of this, but it is a fact of my life.
When I was 19, in the days after the British burned the Capitol and the White House, there was considerable fear that Richmond would be attacked, too, and militia companies were formed to defend her. On the 30th of August, 1814, I enlisted in Capt. Josiah Penick’s company of light infantry and for the next six months we were based at Camp Carter and Camp Bottoms Bridge, both just a few miles from Richmond, while on patrol and in training.
The war ended with ratification of the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814, but news spread slowly. So I remained in service until honorably discharged on Feb. 22, 1815.
After my discharge, I returned to Prince Edward County and the family farm, where I remained for seven years --- until my marriage on May 28, 1822, to Rebecca Ann Johns who, at age 15, was some 13 years my junior. You, I’m sure, would think she was too young for marriage; we thought little of it.
We started our family, in all 11 children born during the next 20 years, in Prince Edward, then moved to Botetourt County, where we lived for three years, and then to Montgomery County, where we lived until 1838.
During that year, we sold out in Virginia --- including land and two slaves to finance our move --- and headed for the far west, Danville in Hendricks County, Indiana, just west of Indianapolis. We lived there until 1850.
But the West still beckoned and during September of 1850, Congress passed a law awarding 80 acres of government land to any enlisted man who had served at least six months during the War of 1812 and who had not previously been entitled to a grant.
I had a choice --- Move west to claim my free 80 acres or sell the warrant at a big discount to someone else. We talked this over as a family. Indiana was becoming crowded, our sons wanted to farm and Iowa was wide open and waiting.
We sold in out in Indiana once our crops were harvested during 1851. Rebecca and I had purchased at discount a military warrant for 160 more acres that its owner could not use himself and we set out for Lucas County, Iowa, in ox-drawn wagons, carrying with us all we owned. The party included all of our married children and our grandchildren.
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Once we arrived at Chariton, Rebecca and I selected as our home farm the 160 acres you can see right now from here, just east and northeast across Highway 14, its western boundary. Our home was a quarter mile east, right on the Mormon Trail. Chariton’s current Woodlawn Avenue was the north boundary.
The land was prairie then with no timber on it, so we also purchased 40 wooded acres along the river down in Benton Township and 40 more acres along the White Breast northwest of town as a source of logs to build our cabins, rails for our fences and wood to burn.
There was hardly anything to Chariton when we arrived, but in 1853, the government land office was moved here from Fairfield and she began to boom. The courthouse was a log building on the east side of the square and there were more log business buildings and residential cabins scattered around the square.
During elections in August of that year, I was elected county recorder and treasurer by a 12-vote margin.
Our youngest son, Daniel, was born at Chariton during February of 1853 and two years later, on the 17th of September 1855, our middle daughter, Nancy died. Nancy had, like her mother, married at age 15, during 1854. Her husband was a land speculator named Joshua P. Chapman. Childbirth claimed Nancy little more than a year later. She was the first of the family to be buried in what you now call Douglass Pioneer Cemetery, near our cabin on the old Mormon Trail.
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Our years at Chariton, otherwise, were good ones. But when the territories of Nebraska and Kansas were created and opened to settlers in 1854, we began to look west again. I was a hardy 60 and Rebecca, in her 40s. Our adult children became increasingly anxious to set out for the West and it seemed likely that we would accompany them.
Then, I was struck down on the 22nd of January 1858 at the age of 62. Eight months later, on the 12th of September, Rebecca was gone, too. And so our dreams ended here. We were buried beside Nancy in the old Mormon Trail cemetery, older children took charge of the younger ones and the family scattered like buckshot.
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As the years passed, our final resting place fell into disrepair. This beautiful cemetery was opened during 1864 and most stopped using what you now call Douglass. Hiram Wilson, lynched for killing Sheriff Gaylord Lyman, was buried there in 1870 and, after that, the county used it as a potter’s field for a time.
But eventually it was abandoned, the grass grew tall and brush began to overtake it. Our children began to worry and decided eventually that our remains should be moved.
That was why our daughter, Fannie Hardin, then a prosperous widow living in Denver, Colorado, made a special trip to Chariton during late September, 1919, to make the arrangements. Dr. John E. Stanton, who then owned this cemetery, was paid to disinter our remains at Douglass on Oct. 15 and rebury them here. Our tombstones also were brought into town and reset.
And so we have reposed here ever since, within sight of the land we settled upon more than 170 years ago, far from Virginia, where our journeys began. (Research and script writing by Frank D. Myers.)
Please note that the War of 1812 flag holder at Samuel Walthall's grave (placed during 1919) belongs there, but the Spanish American War flag holder does not --- but I've not disturbed it. It most likely strayed from the nearby grave of Tom or Walter Black after being knocked loose and carelessly relocated during cemetery maintenance.
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